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This website incorporates a comprehensive database housing information on complaints investigated by the PCC since 1996.

You can search on the links below to read about resolved and adjudicated cases. Alternatively, you can use the free search facility at the top right of this webpage to search by publication name, complainant name, or clause of the Code; or use the cases search facility which will allow you to search on a combination of these.

The complaints that appear on this website fall into three categories:

Adjudicated The Commission can elect formally to adjudicate on any unresolved complaint. This means that the Commission issues a ruling on the substance of the complaint, which is published on this website. If the Commission finds an outstanding breach of the Code, it will uphold the complaint against the publication. The publication will then have to publish the Commission's ruling in full on its pages, with a headline reference to the PCC and with due prominence. If the Commission finds no outstanding breach of the Code, the complaint will be recorded as not upheld.

Resolved A complaint is deemed to be resolved when the PCC has been able to negotiate a resolution with the publication concerned that is satisfactory to the complainant. Some of the ways of achieving this are: the publication of a correction or an apology; a follow-up piece or letter from the complainant; a private letter of apology from the editor; an undertaking as to future conduct by the newspaper; or the annotation of the publication's records to ensure that the error is not repeated.

Monthly complaints summaries The PCC now publish a monthly summary of all concluded complaints. This includes complaints that were found to be outside the Commission's remit; complaints that were not pursued by the complainant; and those that were found not to raise a breach of the Code of Practice, as well as those that were adjudicated or resolved (the full details of which are given in the sections above).

Until the end of 2009 the PCC published summaries of complaints it had dealt with over the previous six months. These biannual reports are available to download for free on this website. These have now been replaced by the monthly complaints summaries, in order to improve the clarity of our statistics.

You may also find it helpful to look at our Complaints Statistics page, as well as this glossary, which seeks to explain the way we categorise and present statistical information in our biannual reports.

You may also find is useful to take a look at a selection of key rulings and decisions made by the PCC under the Editors' Code of Practice. This section acts as a guide to how the PCC interprets the Code of Practice, and includes information about key topics such as privacy, harassment, court reporting and the protection of children.